Letters to the Editor re: Trouble at the FBI crime lab by Spenser Hsu in the Washington Post 4/17/12 …

The Post series documenting problems with forensic analysis at the FBI’s crime lab, and the efforts of officials to conceal the findings, has certainly been eye-opening. One can understand mistakes; one can even understand ignoring sound scientific principles to establish meaningful procedures and protocols. One is hard-pressed, however, to understand why such things should be deliberately concealed from defendants, except for the notion that the people involved were more concerned with protecting agencies and prosecutors than in obtaining impartial justice… Orin Hollander, Jamison, Pa.

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LMW Comment …

The withholding or false creation of evidence by police and prosecutors is a cancer on the American justice system which nobody seems to want to do anything about. Purposeful false conviction should be a prosecutable offense, and police and prosecutors who lie (as opposed to making a mistake) should go to jail.

But where are the prosecutors who have the courage to bring charges against their colleagues?

It surely seems that the FBI and the DOJ have withheld evidence in the case against Dr. Bruce Ivins. If so, those who did so and those who have covered up for them should face criminal charges of obstruction of justice.

Do you see parallels between this institution-protecting behavior by FBI and DOJ and the Catholic Church coverup of sexual abuse by priests? To me it is all part of the same pattern by which those in power seek to stay in power, the truth be damned.